• last year
Owning a sports team has long been goal of the ultra-rich but expanding it into an empire—with multiple teams across various leagues—is a winning strategy for creating generational wealth. Having a portfolio of teams allows an owner to sell cross-sponsorships, develop mixed-use real estate, and expand into new distribution channels with greater ease. A sports empire can also take the pressure off any single team a sports owner has, acting as a hedge for rebuilding years. And it almost always pays off.

In 2024, The 25 most valuable sports empires in the world have an aggregate enterprise value of $216 billion—or an average of $8.6 billion—an increase of 24% from a year ago. The main reason for the rise? Team values have been growing at a robust pace. On average, the 124 teams in MLB, NBA, NFL and NHL teams went up 21% in value in 2023 versus the prior year. All of which has made it much harder to earn a place on this annual ranking—the cut off this year was $4.95 billion, 38% higher than a year ago.

The biggest gainer on this year’s empires list is Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment, up 155% from last year to $11.9 billion thanks mainly to the purchase of the Washington Commanders by Josh Harris last July for a record $6.05 billion.. HBSE now effectively runs a group of assets that includes many of the world’s most popular sports—NFL (Commanders), NBA (Philadelphia 76ers), NHL (New Jersey Devils), English Premier League (Crystal Palace), Nascar (Joe Gibbs Racing), and youth sports (Ripken Baseball).

Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikeozanian/2024/01/25/the-worlds-most-valuable-sports-empires-2024/?sh=5ec068447931

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Category

🥇
Sports
Transcript
00:00 The world's 25 most valuable sports empires are worth in aggregate
00:05 216 billion dollars this year or an average of
00:09 8.6 billion per empire that represents a 24% increase over last year
00:16 It also got a lot harder to make the list this year. The cutoff was
00:21 4.95 billion
00:24 38% higher than last year in order to be eligible for our list a
00:29 sports team owner or a company has to be the controlling owner of one sports team worth at least
00:36 500 million dollars as well as own other sports related assets worth at least 100 million dollars
00:43 here are the top five sports empires in the world and
00:47 number five is
00:50 Harris Blitzer sports and entertainment
00:52 Harris Blitzer sports and entertainment increased a hundred and fifty five percent in value
00:58 Last year the biggest increase among our 25 empires
01:03 Harris Blitzer bought of course the Washington commanders last year for a record six billion dollars
01:11 that NFL team
01:14 complements its portfolio of
01:16 Crystal Palace the English soccer team the Philadelphia 76 is in the NBA and the New Jersey Devils in the NHL
01:25 perfectly giving Harris Blitzer sports and entertainment a big franchise in each of the four main team sports
01:33 Number four is Jerry Jones
01:37 Jerry owns the Dallas Cowboys, of course, the Cowboys are worth nine billion dollars
01:44 They're the most valuable sports team in all of sports
01:49 number three is Fenway Sports Group
01:54 Fenway Sports Group started building its sports empire in
01:57 2002 when it acquired the Boston Red Sox
02:00 since then it's also bought Liverpool the English soccer team and
02:05 More recently the Pittsburgh Penguins in the National Hockey League
02:09 Each of these teams have increased significantly in value since they were acquired by Fenway Sports Group
02:16 Number two on our list this year is Kroenke sports and entertainment
02:22 It's operated by Stan Kroenke one of the richest people in the world
02:26 Kroenke has a wide variety of sports assets including in the NBA the NHL and
02:34 In addition the Rams in football last year, of course the Nuggets won the NBA championship
02:40 Kroenke also owns SoFi Stadium home to the Los Angeles Rams SoFi is the glitziest football
02:48 stadium in the NFL
02:51 Number one on our list this year is Liberty Media
02:54 Whose Formula One racing promotion we valued this past summer at an average of one point eight eight billion
03:03 dollars per team that represented almost a threefold increase over the valuation
03:09 We gave those teams in 2019
03:12 You
03:15 You
03:17 You
03:19 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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